Two bouts of gunfire on either side of the Atlantic gave the inspiration to this week’s series of articles. But if the statistics show that war is declining and criminal violence in most regions is flatlining, how should we read the redoubts of extreme insecurity? Are they holdovers from the past,
A deep strategic rethink is needed to reverse the dismal failure of the war on drugs and gangs, particularly in the way this has been fought across Central America and the Caribbean. Intimate community engagement and integral policy approaches are crucial steps in moving on from the bankrupt iron
Guatemala’s elite, which has tried since 1996 to engage in politics to ensure that democracy produces conservatism and economic libertarianism, is now expressing some unorthodox ideas. The most radical will say over the dinner table that the answer to the security crisis is more violence.
Mexico’s government has led a five-year war against organized crime that has turned parts of the country into sites of atrocious violence, claimed more than 40,000 lives, and generated heated debate over its priorities and preferences. With elections on the horizon, has the time come to correct th
Across Latin America, violence is becoming a perverse ‘normality’, undermining social relations and endangering the prospects for democracy. Reproduced by a complex web of influences, violence is reshaping everyday life, religion, politics and architecture, and has thoroughly outstripped the respo
After a few years of relative peace under the rule of a mafia boss, the Colombian city of Medellín, birthplace of the first great narco-trafficking cartel, has seen violent crime soar once again. The culprits are from a new generation of urban youth specializing in protection rackets, drug sales a
The United States armed forces have played a leading role in the “war on drugs” across much of Latin America. The results are damaging and counterproductive, says Juan Gabriel Tokatlian.
A movement has begun in Mexico. United by the poet Javier Sicilia, victims of the misguided, corruption-fuelled war on drugs are coming together to resist the cartels and the country’s widespread violence.
The human security discourse has been utilized by powerful states and institutions of global governance to legitimise the expansion of the liberal state-building consensus on the grounds of humanitarianism. The case of Haiti shows how interventions aiming to establish security in ‘weak’ or ‘failin
Despite a tense exchange over the Falkland islands between British Prime Minister David Cameron and Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner, another war over the islands looks highly unlikely any time soon. Instead, argues James Lockhart Smith, the conflict will continue to take a diplomatic cours
Obama’s trip to the stable democracies of Brazil, Chile and El Salvador beginning on March 19 is a sign of maturing relations between the US and Latin America. Nevertheless, a toughening approach towards security issues and the hard-headed calculation of US national interests will be a dominant th
